Feature ideas for '12

Some of these are probably impossible for legal reason, but I thought I'd throw them out there anyway.

1. When a situation arises when a player wants to leave the club, you should be able to tell the player's agent to go out and "sell" his player to other teams, giving the agent your selling price. The agent's success would depend on his stats, like touting player attribute, the clubs he might visit would depend on the scope, etc.

2. When requesting to build a new stadium, or expand a present one, I've often encountered stubborn city councils. When you do run into a refusal, you should have the option to appeal, and to work with the city council, perhaps offering revenue sharing or something of the sort.

3. Leagues do not remain static. And while the true to real life leagues are admirable, when you play 20-30 year seasons, it gets monotonous. Perhaps something like a "fantasy" toggle in the preferences would allow for changes in league rules in year 2018/19, perhaps a script that would give a 5% chance of Celtic and Rangers joining the EPL. A 2% chance of the Ukrainian and Russian leagues merging. MLS dumping their stupid setup in favor of the European model. Uzbekistan and Lebanon joining UEFA. Etc.

4. There are times when a manager within a club rises to the level of a demi-god, having the ability to dictate his wishes to the board/president, let's say if you as a manager become a legend, you should have the ability not just to decide the exact feeder club you want, but also have dictatorial power in terms of stadium expansion/building, number of people on the staff, number of feeder clubs, etc.

5. Commercial tournaments. Clubs with a high reputation should get invitations to commercial tournaments and tours during the summer.

6. Pre-season training for a club is radically different than in-season training. Not sure there's a way to mimic it in the game, but maybe divide the pre-season into 3 segments, in the first, the team is supposed to raise its fitness level from the off-season, and the level to which they are able to recover, and how long it lasts in-season should be directly related to the quality of your fitness coaches. The second and third pre-season segments can be used for either more fitness, extensive attribute training, or match training prep, building on team cohesion and understanding.

7. In the editor, the tactics should better represented in the database. Currently, you only select the numerical description. When speaking of a modern 4-2-4 formation, it can mean any number of things - one with 2 strikers and 2 attacking wingers. 4 strikers, some asymmetrical formation, etc. While the managers all have pre-set formations, they don't always resemble the thing that those managers would produce in real life. Perhaps a simplified form of the tactics editor might be used in the db.

PS: Sorry if this makes little sense, it's late at night, and I'm half asleep.

Was in bed last night and I had an awesome idea for FM12, but I forgot. Especially points 3 and 5 are very appealing to me. When you play a very long term game gets very repetative.

The 3rd one would be good, but very difficult to implement.

You make some excellent points.

Certainly agree that pre-season needs to introduce a more commercial side to it to bring it in line with the real world.

I started a thread a while ago you may be interested in looking at: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/227735-Time-for-pre-season-to-get-a-makeover

I think your point about 'static leagues' is a very interesting one. It would be fantastic to be able to modify competiton rules as the game years go by. As you say changes happen all the time irl such as the squad registration rule. I would imagine there would be many legal issues with that though.

Just to throw my idea in, I have always said that scouts should bring their own scout reports with them i.e. it should be seen as something of a coup if say Hull City sign a Manchester United scout surely the scout would have excellent knowledge of the current Manchester United team and also bring the reports he has compiled whilst at the previous club.... This is now probably achievable due to scouts 'roam' freely when not assigned to any particular assignment.

1. It was the case when offering a player, you could specify which clubs - what happened to that?

2. A manager never does that however big he is - it's the board's task. E.g. Moyes, Benitez, Hodgson - none of them are involved with discussions with Liverpool Council.

3. DLR is good but that is too "prophetic". It would be like the game guessing global economic swings, financial crashes, collapse of TV deals - it would make things to difficult for a manager to plan long term. Consider, you've worked hard to get your team to a promotion spot in the Championship, and you're informed that due to a new rule rule to allow the Old Firm into the EPL, you won't go up. Too unfair.

4. already there - ultimatum.

5. Okay, yes. you can take the initiative and organise one yourself, but I like the idea of being invited to one.

6. up to the manager to organise the training schedules, but I agree a lot more thought should go into pre-season preparation. The changes to training for FM11 were a little underwhelming.

7. Very much agree with that - too much of those aspects are cosmetic. In particular a lot of stats etc that pertain to you the manager are useless and need to be developed. E.g. your club/player loyalty is 2, or 18 - so what?

5. Okay, yes. you can take the initiative and organise one yourself, but I like the idea of being invited to one.

Do you honestly think pre-season is fine the way it is?

Imo the game has not progressed nearly enough to mirror the importance of pre-season irl.

It's the one area of the game that has not really improved at all for years, apart from making it easier to find teams who want to play you.

Surely it's the next big 'revamp area' on SI's list

2. A manager never does that however big he is - it's the board's task. E.g. Moyes, Benitez, Hodgson - none of them are involved with discussions with Liverpool Council.

4. already there - ultimatum.

2. True, that's what I meant - the board should work harder in the background to get it done. Right now, it seems, they just sit and do nothing, as if the financial viability of their club means nothing to them. And even after a council makes a decision, it's not like all work on the project is stopped, in real life the club goes back, makes new proposals, etc. If a club wants something done, they don't stop when they get a refusal.

4. Yes, but even when I was a legend it has never worked, I was always fired, so I quit even trying to use it.

#3 won't be in future games for legal reasons for sure. Would love MLS to follow the European model though (I would prefer to keep the drafts though).

And yes, it would be nice if the games automatically organize those pre-season tournaments like IRL.

Overhaul of scouting to make it more like OOTP. In short, OOTP has a scouting director that handles scouting for all the players. No more manually hiring/assigning scouts.